Rina Gallo had no warning before she was hit from behind and dragged about a dozen feet along the sidewalk by a mobility scooter in Langley on Jan. 21.

Gallo was waiting at a crosswalk, at 199 Street and 64 Avenue, on her way to pick up some groceries, when a scooter approached her from behind. 

"You can see I had no idea," Gallo said. "There was no warning."

The scooter's driver at first seemed to be trying to go around, then veered towards her, knocking Gallo down. The driver failed to stop and dragged Gallo away from the intersection.

"I was screaming," said Gallo. She said the scooter ran over her up to her neck.

She was hit and dragged with such force that it peeled off her shoes. Her life flashed before her eyes, she said.

"Those things are so heavy," Gallo said. "Trust me, I've been under one now."

A man passing by stopped and offered help, and he called 9-1-1, phoned Gallo's family members for her, and waited with her until she was taken to Langley Memorial Hospital by ambulance.

Gallo said she was in the hospital until about midnight that night, receiving X-rays and being checked out.

Fortunately, she did not break any bones, but her legs are badly sprained and scraped. She's using crutches and still in pain.

Gallo says scooters like that shouldn't be allowed on the sidewalk, and laws need to be changed.

Bicycles and electric kick scooters aren't allowed on sidewalks, Gallo noted, and she thinks mobility scooters shouldn't be allowed either. In addition, she'd like to see their users licensed and required to take a test.

She's also upset with the man who walked through the crosswalk after she was hit, glanced at her, and kept going without saying anything or offering assistance.

She has met with the scooter operator who struck her, and the woman and her husband offered Gallo $1,500 and five sessions of physiotherapy, which Gallo accepted.

More than a week after the incident, she has difficulty getting around. She can't take her two dogs out for walks by herself, and is afraid of cars and going out onto the streets since she was hit.

"I'm nervous, I'm scared outside now," Gallo said.

This incident was the third time in six months she's been in some kind of serious incident. She was a passenger in a car that was hit by another vehicle in Manitoba in August. And in November, Gallo said she was clipped by a vehicle while walking along the Langley Bypass. That hit and run left her with a compression fracture in one vertebra.